E 105 
.S63 
Copy 1 



NORTHMEN !N AMERICA 



985—1015, 




Glass. 
Book 



Eias 



-S63 



THE 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 



BY THE 



NORTHMEN. 

985—1 015. 

A discoursp: delivered before the new 

HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
APRIL 24, 1888. 



^^ 



j^e 



li 



BY THE REV. EDMUND F. SLAFTER, D. D., 

A CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY, HONORARY MEMBER OF3thE 
ROTAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN, ETC., ETC. 




CONCORD, N. H. : 

PRIVATELY PRINTED. 
1891. 



N.T. Pub, U\^ 



REPRINTED FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL 

SOCIETY. 



— I ■"' 



DISCOURSE. 



On the 29th da)'^ of October, 1SS7, a statue erected to the 
memory of Leif, the son of Erik, the discoverer of America, 
was unveiled in the city of Boston, in the presence of a large 
assembly of citizens. The statue is of bronze, a little larger 
than life-size, and represents the explorer standing upon the 
prow of his ship, shading his eyes with his hand, and gazing 
towards the west. This monument-^ suggests the subject to 
w^hich I wish to call your attention, viz., the story of the dis- 
covery of this continent by the Scandinavians nearly nine hun- 
dred years ago. 

I must here ask your indulgence for the statement of a few 
preliminary historical facts in order that we may have a clear 
understanding of this discovery. 

About the middle of the ninth century, Harald Haarfager, or 
the fair-haired, came to the throne of Norway. He was a 
young and handsome prince, endowed with great energy of 
will and many personal attractions. It is related that he fell 
in love with a beautiful princess. His addresses were, how- 
ever, coolly rejected with the declaration that when he became 
king of Norway in reality, and not merely in name, she would 

1 If it be admitted, as it is almost universally, that the Scandinavians came to this 
continent in the last part of the tenth or the early part of the eleventh century, it is 
eminently fitting that a suitable monument should mark and emphasize the event. 
And it seems equally fitting that it should be placed in Boston, the metropolis of New- 
England, since it simply commemorates the event of their coming, but is not intended 
to indicate their land-fall, or the place of their temporary abode. 



give him both her heart and her hand. This admonition was 
not disregarded by the young king. The thirty-one principal- 
ities into which Norway was at that time divided were in a 
few years subjugated, and the petty chieftains or princes who 
ruled over them became obedient to the royal authority. The 
despotic rule, however, of the king was so irritating and 
oppressive that many of them sought homes of greater freedom 
in the inhospitable islands of the northern seas. Among the 
rest, Iceland, having been discovered a short time before, was 
colonized by them. This event occurred about the year 874. 
Notwithstanding the severity of the climate and the sterility of 
the soil, the colony rapidly increased in numbers and wealth, 
and an active commerce sprung up with the mother country, 
and was successfully maintained. At the end of a century, 
they had pushed their explorations still farther, and Greenland 
was discovered, and a colony was planted there, which con- 
tinued to flourish for a long period. 

About the year 9S5, a young, enterprising, and prosperous 
navigator, who had been accustomed to carry on a trade between 
Iceland and Norway, on returning from the latter in the sum- 
mer of the year, found that his father had left Iceland some 
time before his arrival, to join a new colony which had been 
then recently planted in Greenland. This young merchant, 
who bore the name of Bjarni, disappointed at not finding his 
father in Iceland, determined to proceed on and pass the com- 
ing winter with him at the new colony in Greenland. Having 
obtained what information he could as to the geographical 
position of Greenland, this intrepid navigator accordingly set 
sail in his little barque, with a small number of men, in an 
unknown and untried sea, guided in his course only by the 
sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies.^ After sailing three 
days they entirely lost sight of land. A north wind sprung 

1 The mariner's compass was not discovered till the twelfth or thirteenth century. 



up, accompanied with a dense fog, which utterly shrouded the 
heavens from their view, and left them at the mercy of the 
winds and the waves. Thus helpless, they were borne along 
for many days in an open and trackless ocean, they knew not 
whither. At length the fog cleared away, the blue sky 
appeared, and soon after they came in sight of land. On 
approaching near to it, they observed that it had a low, undu- 
lating surface, was without mountains, and was thickly cov- 
ered with wood. It was obviously not the Greenland for 
which they were searching. Bearing away and leaving the 
land on the west, after sailing two days, they again came in 
sieht of land. This was likewise flat and well wooded, but 
could not be Greenland, as that had been described to them as 
having very high snow-capped hills. Turning their prow 
from the land and launching out into the open sea, after a sail 
of three days, they came in sight of another country having a 
flat, rocky foreground, and mountains beyond with ice-clad 
summits. This was unlike Greenland as it had been described 
to them. They did not even lower their sails. They, how- 
ever, subsequently found it to be an island. Continuing on 
their course, after sailing four days they came to Greenland, 
where Bjarni found his father, with whom he made his per- 
manent abode. 

This accidental discovery of lands hitherto unknown, and 
farther west than Greenland, and differing in important features 
from any countries with which they were familiar, awakened 
a very deep interest wherever the story was rehearsed. Bjarni 
was criticised, and blamed for not having made a thorough 
exploration and for bringing back such a meagre account of 
what he had seen. But while these discoveries were the fre- 
quent subject of conversation, both in Norway and in the colo- 
nies of Iceland and Greenland, it was not until fifteen years 
had elapsed that any serious attempt was made to verify the 



6 

statement of Bjarni, or to secure any advantages from what he 
had discovered. 

About the year looo, Leif, the son of Erik, an early colonist 
of Greenland, determined to conduct an expedition in search of 
the new lands which had been seen on the accidental voyage of 
Bjarni. He accordingly fitted out a ship, and manned it with 
thirty-five men. Shaping their course by the direction and 
advice of Bjarni, their first discovery was the country which 
Bjarni had seen last. On going ashore they saw no grass, but 
what appeared to be a plain of flat stones stretching back to 
icy mountains in the distance. They named it flat-stone land, 
or Helluland. 

Again proceeding on their voyage, they came to another 
land which was flat, covered with wood, with low, white, 
sandy shores, answering to the second country seen by Bjarni. 
Having landed and made a personal inspection, they named 
the place woodland, or Markland. 

Sailing once more into the open sea with a north-east wind, 
at the end of two days they came to a third country, answering 
to that which Bjarni had first seen. They landed upon an 
island situated at the mouth of a river. They left their ship in 
a sound between the island and the river. The water was 
shallow, and the receding tide soon left their ship on the beach. 
As soon, however, as their ship was lifted by the rising tide, 
they floated it into the river, and from thence into a lake, or an 
expansion of the river above its mouth. Here they landed and 
constructed temporary dwellings, but having decided to pass 
the winter, they proceeded to erect buildings for their more 
ample accommodation. They found abundance of fish in the 
waters, the climate mild, and the nature of the country such 
that they thought cattle would not even require feeding or 
shelter in winter. They observed that day and night were 
more equal than in Greenland or Iceland. The sun was above 



the horizon on the shortest day, if we may accept the interpre- 
tation of learned Icelandic scholars^, from half past seven in 
the morning till half past four in the afternoon. Having com- 
pleted their house-building, they devoted the rest of the season 
to a careful and systematic exploration of the country about 
them, not venturing, how^ever, so far that they could not return 
to their homes in the evening. 

In this general survey they discovered grapes growing in 
great abundance, and timber of an excellent quality and highly 
valued in the almost woodless region from whence they came. 
With these two commodities they loaded their ship, and in the 
spring returned to Greenland. Leif gave to the country, which 
he had thus discovered and explored, a name, as he said, after 
its " qualities," and called it Vineland. 

The next voyage was made by Thorvald, a brother of Leif, 
probably in the year 1002. The same ship was employed, and 

1 This statement rests on the interpretation of Professor Finn Magnusea, for which 
see " The Voyages of the Northmen to America," Prince Socely's ed, pp. 34, 126. Bos- 
ton, 1877. The general description of the climate and the products of the soil are in 
harmony with this interpretation, but it has nevertheless been questioned. Other 
Icelandic writers differ from him, and make the latitude of the land-fall of Leif at 
49° 55', instead of 41° 43' 10", as computed by Magnusen. 

This later interpretation is by Professor Gustav Storm. Vide The Finding of 
Wineland the Good, by Arthur Middleton Reeves, pp. 181-1S5. London, 1890. These 
interpretations are wide apart. Both writers are represented to be able and thorough 
scholars. When doctors disagree, who shall decide ? The sciolists will doubtless range 
themselves on different sides, and fight it out to the bitter end. 

The truth is, the chronology of that period in its major and minor applications was 
exceedingly indefinite. The year when events occurred is settled, when settled at all, 
with great difficulty ; and it is plain that the divisions of the day were loose and indefi- 
nite. At least, they could only be approximately determined. In the absence of clocks, 
watches, and chronometers, there could not be anything like scientific accuracy, and 
the attempt to apply scientific principles to Scandinavian chronology only renders con- 
fusion still more confused. The terms which they used to express the divisions of the 
day were all indefinite. One of them, for example, was hirdis ristnal, which means 
the time when the herdsmen took their breakfast. This was sufficiently definite for 
the practical purposes of a simple, primitive people ; but as the breakfast hour of a 
people is always more or less various, hirdis rismdl probably covered a period from one 
to three hours, and therefore did not furnish the proper data for calculating latitude. 
Any meaning given by translators touching exact hours of the day must, therefore, be 
taken cum grano salis, or for only what it is worth. 



8 

was manned with thirty men. They repaired at once to the 
booths or temporary houses constructed by Leif, where they 
passed three winters, subsisting chiefly upon fish, which they 
took in the waters near them. In the summers they explored 
the country in various directions to a considerable distance. 
They discovered no indications of human occupation except on 
an island, where they found a corn-shed constructed of wood. 
The second year they discovered native inhabitants in gi-eat 
numbers, armed with missiles, and having a vast flotilla of boats 
made of the skins of animals. With these natives they came 
into hostile conflict, in which Thorvald received a wound of 
which he subsequently died. He was buried at a spot selected 
by himself, and crosses were set up at his head and at his feet. 
After another winter, having loaded their ship with grapes and 
vines, the explorers returned to Greenland. 

The death of Thorvald was a source of deep sorrow to his 
family, and his brother Thorstein resolved to visit Vineland and 
bring home his body. He accordingly embarked in the same 
ship, with twenty-five chosen men, and his wife Gudrid. The 
voyage proved unsuccessful. Having spent the whole summer 
in a vain attempt to find Vineland, they returned to Greenland, 
and during the winter Thorstein died, and the next year his 
widow Gudrid was married to Thorfinn Karlsefni, a wealthy 
Icelandic merchant. 

In the year 1007, three ships sailed for Vineland, one com- 
manded by Thorfinn Karlsefni, one by Bjarni Grimolfson, and 
the third by Thorvard, the husband of Freydis, the half-sister 
of Leif, the son of Erik. There were altogether in the three 
ships, one hundred and sixty men, and cattle of various kinds 
taken with them perhaps for food, or possibly to be useful in 
case they should decide to make a permanent settlement. They 
attempted, however, nothing beyond a careful exploration of the 
country, which they found beautiful and productive, its forests 



9 

abounding in wild game, its rivers well stocked with fish, and 
the soil producing a spontaneous growth of native grains. They 
bartered trifles with the natives for their furs, but they were 
able to hold little intercourse with them. The natives were so 
exceedingly hostile that the lives of the explorers were in con- 
stant peril, and they consequently, after some bloody skirmishes, 
abandoned all expectation of making a permanent settlement. 
At the end of three years, Karlsefni and his voyagers returned 
to Greenland. 

In the year loii Freydis, the half-sister of Leif, inspired by 
the hope of a profitable voyage, entered into a partnership with 
two merchants, and passed a winter in Vineland. She was a 
bold, masculine woman, of unscrupulous character, and desti- 
tute of every womanly quality. She fomented discord, con- 
trived the assassination of her partners in the voyage, and early 
the next spring, having loaded all the ships with timber and 
other commodities, she returned with rich and valuable cargoes 
for the Greenland market. 

Such is the story of the discovery of America in the last 

years of the tenth and the early years of the eleventh centu- 
ries. 

These four expeditions of which I have given a very brief 
outline, passing over many interesting but unimportant details, 
constitute all of which there remains any distinct and well 
defined narrative. Other voyages may have been made during 
the same or a later period. Allusions are found in early Scan- 
dinavian writings, which may confirm the narratives which we 
have given, but add to them nothing really essential or impor- 
tant. 

The natural and pertinent question which the historical 
student has a right to ask is this : On what evidence does this 
story rest.^ What reason have we to believe that these voyages 
were ever made.'' 



10 

I will endeavor to make the answer to these inquiries as 
plain and clear as possible. 

There are two kinds of evidence by which remote historical 
events may be established, viz., ancient writings, which can be 
relied upon as containing truthful statements of the alleged 
events, and, secondly, historical monuments and remains illus- 
trating and confirming the written narratives. Such events 
may be established by one of these classes of evidence alone, or 
by both in concurrence. 

Our attention shall be directed in the first place to certain 
ancient writings in which the story of this discovery of America 
is found. What are these ancient writings.'* and to what extent 
do they challenge our belief.'* 

At the time that the alleged voyages to this continent in the 
year looo, and a few years subsequent, were made, the old 
Danish or Icelandic tongue, then spoken in Iceland and Green- 
land, the vernacular of the explorers, had not been reduced to a 
written language, and of course the narrative of these voyages 
could not at that time be written out. But there was in that 
language an oral literature of a peculiar and interesting charac- 
ter. It had its poetry, its romance, its personal memoirs, and 
its history. It was nevertheless unwritten. It was carried in 
the memory, and handed down from one generation to another. 
In distinguished and opulent families men were employed to 
memorize and rehearse on festivals and other great occasions, 
as a part of the entertainment, the narratives, which had been 
skilfully put together and polished for public recital, relating to 
the exploits and achievements of their ancestors. These narra- 
tives were called sagas, and those who memorized and repeated 
them were called sagamen. It was a hundred and fifty years 
after the alleged discovery of this continent before the practice 
began of committing Icelandic sagas to writing. Suitable 
parchment was difficult to obtain, and the process was slow 



11 

and expensive, and only a few documents of any kind at first 
were put into written form. But in the thirteenth century 
written sagas multiplied to vast numbers. They were deposited 
in convents and in other places of safety. Between 1650 and 
1 715, these old Icelandic parchments were transferred to the 
libraries of Stockholm and Copenhagen. They were subse- 
quently carefully read, and classified by the most competent 
and erudite scholars. Among them two sagas were found 
relating to discoveries far to the southwest of Greenland, the 
outlines of which I have given you in the preceding pages. 
The earliest of these two sagas is supposed to have been written 
by Hauk Erlendsson, who died in 1334. Whether he copied it 
from a previous manuscript, or took the narrative from oral 
tradition, cannot be determined. The other was written out in 
its present form somewhere between 13S7 and 1395. It was 
probably copied from a previous saga not known to be now 
in existence, but which is conjectured to have been originally 
written out in the twelfth century. These documents are pro" 
nounced by scholars qualified to judge of the character of 
ancient writings to be authentic, and were undoubtedly believed 
by the writers to be narratives of historical truth. 

They describe with great distinctness the outlines of our 
eastern coast, including soil, products, and climate, beginning 
in the cold, sterile regions of the north and extending down ta 
the warm and fruitful shores of the south. It is to be observed 
that there is no improbability that these alleged voyages should 
have been made. That a vessel, sailing from Iceland and bound 
for Greenland, should be blown from its course and drifted to 
the coast of Nova Scotia or of New England, is an occurrence 
that might well be expected ; and to believe that such an acci- 
dental voyage should be followed by other voyages of discovery, 
demands no extraordinary credulity. 

The sagas, or narratives, in which the alleged voyages are 



12 

described, were written out as we have them to-day, more than 
a hundi'ed years before the discoveries of Columbus were^ 
made in the West Indies,^ or those of John Cabot on our north- 
ern Atlantic shores. The writers of these sagas had no infor- 
mation derived from other sources on which to build up the 
fabric of their stor3\ To believe that the agreement of the nar- 
ratives in their general outlines with the facts as we now know 
them was accidental, a mere matter of chance, is impossible. 
The coincidences are so many, and the events so far removed 
from anything that the authors had themselves ever seen, or of 
which they had any knowledge, that it becomes easier and 
more reasonable to accept the narratives in their general feat- 
ures than to deny the authenticity of the records. If we reject 
them, we must on the same principle reject the early history of 
all the civilized peoples of the earth, since that histoiy has been 
obtained in all cases more or less directly from oral tradition. 

In their general scope, therefore, the narrative of the sagas 
has been accepted by the most judicious and dispassionate his- 
torical students, who have given to the subject careful and con- 
scientious study. 

But when we descend to minor particulars, unimportant to 

1 It has been conjectured by some writers that CoUimbus on a visit to Iceland learned 
something of the voyages of the Northmen to America, and was aided by this knowl- 
edge in his subsequent discoveries. There is no evidence whatever that such was the 
<:ase. In writing a memoir of his father, Ferdinando Columbus found among his papers 
a memorandum in which Columbus states that, in February, 1477, he sailed a hundred 
leagues beyond Tile, that this island was as large as England, that the English from 
Bristol carried on a trade there, that the sea when he was there was not frozen over ; 
and he speaks also of the high tides. In the same paragraph we are informed that the 
southern limit of this island is 63° from the equator, which identifies it with Iceland.' 
Beyond these facts, the memorandum contains no information. There is no evidence 
that Columbus was at any time in communication with the natives of Iceland on any 
subject whatever. There is no probability that he sought, or obtained, any information 
of the voyages of the Northmen to this continent. Ferdinando Columbus's Life of his 
father may be found in Spanish in Barcia's Historical Collections, Vol. I. Madrid, 1749. 
It is a translation from the Italian, printed in Venice in 15 71. An English translation 
appears in Churchill's Collections, in Kerr's, and in Pinkerton's, but its mistranslations 
and errors render it wholly untrustworthy. 



13 

the general drift and import of the narratives, we find it diffi- 
cult, nay, I may say impossible, to accept them fully and with 
an unhesitating confidence. Narratives that have come down 
to us on the current of oral tradition are sure to be warped and 
twisted from their original form and meaning. Consciously or 
unconsciously they are shaped and colored more or less by the 
several minds through which they have passed. No one can 
fail to have witnessed the changes that have grown up in the 
same story, as repeated by one and another in numerous in- 
stances within his own observation. The careful historian 
exercises, therefore, great caution in receiving what comes to 
him merely in oral tradition.^ 

We must not, however, forget that the sagamen in whose 
memories alone these narratives were preserved at least a hun- 
dred and fifty years, and not unlikely for more than three hun- 
dred, were professional narrators of events. It was their 
office and duty to transmit to others what they had themselves 
received. Their professional character vv^as in some degree a 
guai-antee for the preservation of the truth. But nevertheless 
it was impossible through a long sei-ies of oral narrations, that 
errors should not creep in ; that the memory of some of them 
should not fail at times ; and if it did fail there was no authority 
or standard by which their errors could be corrected. More- 
over it is probable that variations were purposely introduced 
here and there, in obedience to the sagaman's conceptions of 
an improved style and a better taste. What variations took 
place thi-ough the failure of the memory or the conceit of the 

1 It is somewhat remarkable that most writers who have attempted to estimate the 
vahie of the sagas as historical evidence have ignored the fact, that from a hundred and 
fifty to three hundred years they existed only in oral tradition, handed down from one 
generation to another, subject to the changes which are inevitable in oral statements. 
They are treated by these critics as they would treat scientific documents, a coast or 
geodetic survey, or an admiralty report, in which lines and distances are determined by 
the most accurate instruments, and measurements and records are made simultaneously. 
It is obvious that their premises must be defective, and consequently their deductions 
are sure to be erroneous. 



14 

sagamen, whether few or many, whether trivial or important, 
can never be determined. It is therefore obvious that our 
interpretation of minor particulars in the sagas cannot be criti- 
cal, and any nicely exact meaning, any absolute certainty, can- 
not be successfully maintained, since an inevitable doubt, 
never to be removed, overshadows these minor particulars. 
We may state, therefore, without hesitation, that the narratives 
of the sagas are to be accepted only in their general outlines 
and prominent features. So far we find solid ground. If we 
advance farther we tread upon quicksands, and are not sure of 
our foothold. 

The question here naturally arises, viz.. If in minor particu- 
lars the sagas cannot be fully relied upon, to what extent can we 
identify the countries discovered, and the places visited by the 
Northmen? 

In answer to this very proper inquiry, I observe that, 
according to the narrative of the sagas, and the interpretation 
of Scandinavian scholars, the first country that the explorers 
discovered after leaving Greenland answers in its general feat- 
ures to Newfoundland, with its sterile soil, its rocky sur- 
face, and its mountains in the back-ground. The second 
answers to Nova Scotia, with its heavy forests, its low, level 
coast, and its white, sandy clifls and beaches. The third an- 
swers to New England in temperature, climate, productions 
of the soil, the flat, undulating surface of the country, and 
its apparent distance from Greenland, the base or starting- 
point from which these voyages of discovery were made. 

The statements of the sagas coincide with so man^-ofthe 
general features of our Atlantic coast that there is a strong 
probability, not indeed rising to a demonstration, but to as 
much certainty as belongs to anything in the period of unwrit- 
ten history, that the Vineland of the Northmen was somewhere 
on our American Atlantic coast. Of this there is little room for 



15 

doubt. But when we go beyond this there is absolutely no 
certainty whatever. The local descriptions of the sagas ai'e 
all general and indefinite. They identify nothing. When they 
speak of an island, a cape, a river, or a bay, they do not give us 
any clue to the locality where the said island, or cape, or river, or 
bay is situated. The whole coast of New England and of the 
English Provinces farther east is serrated with capes and bays 
and river-inlets, and is likewise studded with some hundreds 
of islands. It would be exceedingly interesting, indeed a great 
achievement, if we could clearly fix or identify the land-fall of 
Leif, the Scandinavian explorer, and point out the exact spot 
where he erected his houses and passed the winter. 

The key to this identification, if any exists, is plainly the 
description of the place as given in the sagas. If we find in 
the sagas the land-fall of Leif, the place where the Scandina- 
vians landed, so fully described that it can be clearly distin- 
guished from every other place on our coast, we shall then 
have accomplished this important historical achievement. Let 
us examine this description as it stands in these ancient docu- 
ments. 

Leaving Markland, they were, says the saga, " two days at 
sea before they saw land, and they sailed thither and came to an 
island which lay to the eastward of the land." Here they landed 
and made observations as to the grass and the sweetness of the 
dew. "After that," continues the saga, " they went to the ship, 
and sailed into a sound, which lay between the island and a 
ness (promontory), which ran out to the eastward of the land; 
and then steered westwards past the ness. It was very shallow 
at ebb tide, and their ship stood up, so that it was far to see 
from the ship to the water. 

" But so much did they desire to land, that they did not give 
themselves time to wait until the water again rose under their 
ship, but ran at once on shore, at a place where a river flows 



16 

out of a lake ; but so soon as the waters rose up under the ship, 
then took they boats, and rowed to the ship, and floated it up to 
the river, and thence into the lake, and thei'e cast anchor, and 
brought up from the ship their skin cots, and made there booths. 
After this they took council, and formed the resolution of re- 
maining there for the winter, and built there large houses." 

In this brief extract are all the data which we have relating 
to the land-fall of Leif, and to the place where he erected his 
houses, which were occupied by himself, and by other explorers 
in subsequent years. 

We shall observe that we have in this description an island 
at the mouth of a river. Whether the island was large or 
small, whether it was round, square, cuneiform, broad, narrow, 
high or low, we are not told. It was simply an island, and of 
it we have no further description or knowledge whatever. 

Their ship was anchored in what they call a sounds between 
the island and a promontory or tongue of land which ran out to 
the eastward. The breadth or extent of the sound at high 
water, or at low water, is not given. It may have been broad, 
covering a vast expanse, or it may have been very small, em- 
braced within a few square rods. It was simply a sound, a 
shallow piece of water, where their ship was stranded at low 
tide. Of its character we know nothing more whatever. 

Then we have a river. Whether it was a large river or a 
small one, long or short, wide or narrow, deep or shallow, a 
fresh water or tidal stream, we are not informed. All we 
know of the river is that their ship could be floated up its 
current at least at high tide. 

The river flowed out of a lake. No further description of 
the lake is given. It may have been a large body of water, or it 
may have been a very small one. It may have been only an 
enlargement or expansion of the river, or it may have been a 
bay receiving its waters from the ocean, rising and falling with 



. IT 

the tides, and the river only the channel of its incoming and 
receding' waters. 

On the borders of this lake, or bay, or enlargement of the 
river, as the case may have been, they built their houses; 
whether on the right or left shore, whether near the outlet, 
or miles away, we know not. 

It is easy to see how difficult, how impossible, it is to identify 
the landing-place and temporary abode of the Northmen on 
our coast from this loose and indefinite description of the 
sagas. 

In the nearly nine hundred years which have passed since 
the discovery of this continent by these northern explorers, 
it would be unreasonable not to suppose that very great changes 
have taken place at the mouth of the rivers and tidal bays along 
our Atlantic coast. There is probably not a river's mouth or a 
tidal inlet on our whole eastern frontier, which has not been 
transformed in many and important features during this long 
lapse of time. Islands have been formed, and islands have 
ceased to exist. Sands have been drifting, shores have been 
crumbling, new inlets have been formed, and old ones have 
been closed up. Nothing is more unfixed and changeable than 
the shores of estuaries, and of rivers where they flow into the 
ocean. 

But even if we suppose that no changes have taken place 
in this long lapse of time, there are, doubtless, between Long 
Island Sound and the eastern limit of Nova Scotia, a great num- 
ber of rivers with all the characteristics of that described by the 
sagas. Precisely the same characteristics belong to the Taun- 
ton, the Charles, the Merrimack, the Piscataqua, the Kennebec, 
the Penobscot, the Saint Croix, and the St. John. All these 
rivers have one or more islands at their mouth, and there are 
abundant places near by where a ship might be stranded at low 
tide, and in each of these rivers there are expansions or bays 

2 



18 

from which they flow into the ocean. ^ And there are, probably, 
twenty other less important rivers on our coast, where the same 
conditions may likewise be found. What sagacious student of 
history, what experienced navigator, or what learned geogra- 
pher has the audacity to say that he is able to tell us near which 
of these rivers the Northmen constructed their habitations, 
and made their temporary abode ! The identification is plainly 
impossible. Nothing is more certain than the uncertainty that 
enters into all the local descriptions contained in the Ice- 
landic sagas. In the numerous explorations of those early 
navigators, there is not a bay, a cape, a promontory, or a 
river, so clearly described, or so distinctly defined, that it can 
be identified with any bay, cape, promontory, or river on our 
coast. The verdict of history on this point is plain, and must 
stand. Imagination and fancy have their appropriate sphere, 
but their domain is fiction, and not fact ; romance, and not his- 
tory ; and it is the duty of the historical student to hold them 
within the limits of their proper field. 

But there is yet another question which demands an answer. 
Did the Northmen leave on this continent any monuments or 
works which may serve as memorials of their abode here in the 
early part of the eleventh century ? 

The sources of evidence on this point must be looked for in 
the sagas, or in remains which can be clearly traced to the 
Northmen as their undoubted authors. 

In the sagas, we are compelled to say, as much as we could 
desire it otherwise, that we have looked in vain for any such 
testimony. They contain no evidence, not an intimation, that 
the Northmen constructed any mason work, or even laid one 
stone upon another for any purpose whatever. Their dwell- 
ings, such as they were, were hastily thrown together, to serve 
only for a brief occupation. The rest of their time, according 

^ If the reader will examine our coast-survey maps, he will easily verify this statement. 



19 

to the general tenor of the narrative, was exclusively devoted 
to exploration, and to the preparation and laying in of a cargo 
for their return voyage. This possible source of evidence yields 
therefore no testimony that the Scandinavians left any struct- 
ures which have survived down to the present time, and can 
therefore be regarded as memorials of their abode in this coun- 
try. 

But, if there is no evidence on this point in the sagas, are 
there to be found to-day on any part of our Atlantic coast 
remains which can be plainly traced to the work of the North- 
men ? 

This question, we regret to say, after thorough examination 
and study, the most competent, careful, and learned antiqua- 
ries have been obliged to answer in the negative. Credulity 
has seized upon several comparatively antique works, whose 
origin half a century ago was not clearly understood, and has 
blindly referred them to the Northmen. Foremost among 
them were, first, the stone structure of arched mason-work in 
Newport, Rhode Island ; second, a famous rock, bearing in- 
scriptions, lying in the tide-water near the town of Dighton, 
in Massachusetts; and, third, the " skeleton in armor " found 
at Fall River, in the same state. No others have been put 
forward on any evidence that challenges a critical examina- 
tion. 

The old mill at Newport, situated on the farm of Benedict 
Arnold, an early governor of Rhode Island, was called in his 
will " my stone built wind mill," and had there been in his 
mind any mystery about its origin, he could hardly have failed 
to indicate it as a part of his description. Roger Williams, the 
pioneer settler of Rhode Island, educated at the University of 
Cambridge, England, a voluminous author, was himself an 
antiquary, and deeply interested in everything that pertained to 
our aboriginal history. Had any building of arched mason- 



20 

work, with some pretensions to architecture, existed at the 
time when he first took up his abode in Rhode Island, and be- 
fore any English settlements had been made there, he could 
not have failed to mention it : a phenomenon so singular, un- 
expected, and mysterious must have attracted his attention. 
His silence on the subject renders it morally certain that no 
such structure could have been there at that time.^ 

The inscriptions on the Dighton rock present rude cuttings, 
intermingled with outline figures of men and animals. The 
whole, or any part of them, baffles and defies all skill in inter- 
pretation. Different scholars have thought they discerned in 
the shapeless traceries Phoenician, Hebrew, Scythian, and 
Runic characters or letters. Doubtless some similitude to 
them may here and there be seen. They are probably acci- 
dental resemblances. But no rational interpretation has ever 
been given, and it seems now to be generally conceded by those 
best qualified to judge, that they are the work of our native 
Indians, of very trivial import, if, indeed, they had any mean- 
ing whatever. 

The " skeleton in armor," found at Fall River, has no better 
claim than the rest to a Scandinavian origin. What appeared 
to be human bones were found in a sand-bank, encased in 
metallic bands of brass. Its antecedents are wholly unknown. 
It may possibly have been the relics of some early navigator, 
cast upon our shore, who was either killed by the natives or 
died a natural death, and was buried in the armor in which he 
was clad. Or, what is far more probable, it may have been the 
remains of one of our early Indians, overlaid even in his grave, 
according to their custom, with the ornaments of brass, which 

1 Although most antiquaries and historical students have abandoned all belief in the 
Scandinavian origin of this structure, yet in the March number of Scribner's Magazine, 
1879, ^^ article may be found in defence of the theory that it was erected in the eleventh 
century by the Northmen. The argument is founded on its architectural construction, 
but it is clearly refuted by Mr. George C. Mason, Jr., in the Magazine of American 
History, Vol. Ill, p. 541. 



21 

he had moulded and shaped with his own hands while liv- 

Could the veil be lifted, some such stories as these would 
doubtless spring up from the lifeless bones. But oblivion has 
for many generations brooded over these voiceless remains. 
Their story belongs to the domain of fancy and imagination. 
Poetry has woven it into an enchanting ballad. Its rhythm and 
its polished numbers may always please the ear and gratify the 
taste. But history, the stern and uncompromising arbiter of past 
events, will, we may be sure, never own the creations of the poet 
or the dreams of the enthusiast to be her legitimate offspring. 

^ In Professor Putnam's Report, as Curator of the Peabody Museum of American 
Archeology and Ethnology, in 1S87. will be found the following interesting account 
of the " Skeleton in Armor : " 

" I must, however, mention as of particular interest relating to the early period of 
contact between the Indians and Europeans on this continent, the presentation, by Dr. 
Samuel Kneeland, of two of the brass tubes found with the skeleton of an Indian near 
Fall River, about which so much has been written, including the well known verses by 
Longfellow, entitled ' The Skeleton in Armor.' That two of the ' links of the armor' 
should find their final resting place in this Museum is interesting in itself, and calls up 
in imagination the history of the bits of metal of which they are made. Probably some 
early emigrant brought from Europe a brass kettle, which by barter, or through the 
vicissitudes of those early days, came into the possession of an Indian of one of the New 
England tribes and was by him cut up for ornaments, arrow points, and knives. One 
kind of ornament he made by rolling little strips of the brass into the form of long, 
slender cylinders, in imitation of those he had, probably, before made of copper. These 
were fastened side by side so as to form an ornamental belt, in which he was buried. 
Long afterwards, his skeleton was discovered and the brass beads were taken to be 
portions of the armor of a Norseman. They were sent, with other things found with 
them, to Copenhagen, and the learned men of the old and new world wrote and sung 
their supposed history. Chemists made analyses and the truth came out ; they were 
brass, not bronze nor iron. After nearly half a century had elapsed these two little 
tubes were separated from their fellows, and again crossed the Atlantic to rest by the 
side of similar tubes of brass and of copper, which have been found with other Indian 
braves ; and their story shows how much can be made out of a little thing when fancy 
has full play, and imagination is not controlled by scientific reasoning, and conclusions 
are drawn withqut comparative study." Vide Ttveniieth Atimial Report of the Pea- 
body Museum, Vol. Ill, p. 543. 

In an article on " Agricultural Implements of the New England Indians," Professor 
Henry W. Haynes, of Boston, shows that the Dutch were not allowed to barter with the 
Pequots, because they sold them " kettles" and the like with which they made arrow- 
heads." Vide Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History. Vol. XXII, p. 439. 
In later times brass was in frequent, not to say common, use among the Indians. 



22 

Half a century has now elapsed since the sagas have been 
accessible to the English reader in his own language. No 
labor has been spared by the most careful, painstaking, and 
conscientious historians in seeking for remains which can be 
reasonably identified as the work of the Northmen. None what- 
ever have been found, and we may safely predict that none will 
be discovered, that can bear any better test of their genuineness 
than those to which we have just alluded.-^ 

It is the office and duty of the historian to seek out facts, to 
distinguish the true from the false, to sift the wheat from the 
chaff, to preserve the one and to relegate the other to the obliv- 
ion to which it belongs. 

Tested by the canons that the most judicious scholars have 
adopted in the investigation of all early history, we cannot 
doubt that the Northmen made four or five voyages to the 
coast of America in the last part of the tenth and the first part 
of the eleventh centuries ; that they i-eturned to Greenland with 
cargoes of grapes and timber, the latter a very valuable com- 
modity in the markets both of Greenland and Iceland ; that 
their abode on our shores was temporary ; that they were most- 
ly occupied in explorations, and made no preparations for estab- 
lishing any permanent colony ; except their temporary dwell- 
ings they erected no structures whatever, either of wood or of 
stone. We have intimations that other voyages were made to 
this continent, but no detailed account of them has survived to 
the present time. 

1 There are in many parts of New England old walls and such like structures, appar- 
ently of very little importance when they were originally built, never made the subject 
of record, disused now for many generations, and consequently their origin and purpose 
have passed entirely from the memory of man. Such remains are not uncommon : 
they may be found all along our coast. But there are few writers bold enough to assert 
that they are the work of the Northmen simply because their history is not known, 
and especially since it is very clear that the Northmen erected no stone structures what- 
ever. Those who accept such palpable absurdities would doubtless easily believe that 
the " Tenterden steeple was the cause of the Goodwin Sands." 



23 

These few facts constitute the substance of what we know of 
these Scandinavian discoveries. Of the details we know little : 
they are involved in indefiniteness, uncertainty, and doubt. The 
place of their first landing, the location of their dwellings, the 
parts of the country which they explored, are so indefinitely 
described that they are utterly beyond the power of identifica- 
tion. 

But I should do injustice to the subject to which I have vent- 
ured to call your attention, if I did not add that writers are not 
wanting who claim to know vastly more of the details than I 
can see my way clear to admit. They belong to that select 
class of historians who are distinguished for an exuberance of 
imagination and a redundancy of faith. It is a very easy and 
simple thing for them to point out the land-fall of Leif, the 
river which he entered, the island at its mouth, the bay where 
they cast anchor, the shore where they built their temporary 
houses, the spot where Thorvald was buried, and where they 
set up crosses at his head and at his feet. They tell us what 
headlands were explored on the coast of Massachusetts and 
Rhode Island, and what inlets and bays were entered along the 
shores of Maine. The narratives which they weave from a fer- 
tile brain are ingenious and entertaining : they give to the sagas 
more freshness and greater personality, but when we look for 
the facts on which their allegations rest, for anything that may 
be called evidence, we find only the creations of an undisci- 
plined imagination and an agile fancy. 

It is, indeed, true that it would be highly gratifying to believe 
that the Northmen made more permanent settlements on our 
shores, that they reared spacious buildings and strong for- 
tresses of stone and mason-work, that they gathered about them 
more of the accessories of a national, or even of a colonial ex- 
istence ; but history does not offer us any choice : we must take 
what she gives us, and under the limitations which she imposes. 



24 

The truth, unadorned and without exaggeration, has a beauty 
and a nobility of its own. It needs no additions to commend it 
to the historical student. If he be a true and conscientious 
investigator, he will take it just as he finds it : he will add 
nothing to it : he will take nothing from it. 



iLS*?^ O*" CONGRESS 



011 251 226 3 















r^' M 



